Blumenfeld: Ballade in the form of variations -- edgy thrust

Felix Blumenfeld (1863-1931) was a great pianist. teacher and conductor who often worked together with Rimsky-Korsakov and Lyadov. He taught many pianists and Horowitz was among the students. As a composer Borodin-Blumenfeld arrangement of Polovtsian dances is the most well known work along with the etude for left hand as far as I know. He is recognized as an skillful arranger and inventor of sparkling ideas for piano. This Ballade in the form of variations Op. 34 is among the three larger-scale piano music, i.e., Variations caractéristiques Op. 8 (1888), Sonata-Fantasie Op. 46 (1913), and this work published in 1903. This sounds like early-Scriabin-got-mature. Scriabin's set of etudes Op. 8 offers a perfect preparation.

The Ballade consists of Theme, Two variations, Intermezzo, and Finale though no indications appear on the music. Theme is Andante and it describes something somber and depressing. To me this is despair of peasants. In the first variation it starts to snow. Second, a rise of protest movement, which is terminated with an abrupt execution of the leader. Intermezzo is an endless inner dialog with questions and unsatisfying replies. Finale is a ferocious revolt. The proponent thinks about his lover, family and homeland and other things before diving into the final desparate assault.

Finale has a rapid 6/8 hunting music with a tempo description of Presto non troppo M.M.=152-160. This seemed impossible to me and I hesitated to make a serious attempt to complete my practice on this work. At the time I hit upon a youtube clip of his Symphony in c minor Op. 39 (1907) and found similar patterns of 3:2 cross rhythm in the finale of the symphony (with a slightly slower tempo). The symphony is entitled "In memory of dear departed"(!) My reading of this work might be along the line of composers awareness at the time. This gave me a boost for further work.

I remember I found a youtube video of this composition by a Japanese hobby pianist though it was merely a clip of ~ 3 minutes. She was young and brave enough to play this live in a concert. I managed to "fabricate" a full movie after 2h of recording and many hours of intense editing. It is worth doing so since this is a premier in youtube to the best of my knowledge. As I understand this is a forgotten repertoire and it is understandable. One reason is that there are other colorful variations around the turn of century, i.e., those by Rachmaninov (Chopin var, rich), Faure (solid), Lyadov (picturesque), Glazunov (classical), Szymanowski (Op.3, rich and melodias), and Dukas (the best French piano music). Another reason might be due to impromptu character of this work. The theme might not attractive, the second variation and intermezzo sound monotonous, and the melodies in the middle section of Finale are rather weak. Concert pianists must think about whether this 14 min work satisfies the audience. ...The answer is yes if the performer solves the problems above (I couldn't), if the finale is played reasonably well in a good tempo, and if the audience like dark things like this. The last one is important as Grieg's Ballade, which also went almost out of repertoire for that reason imo.

instrument: Yamaha C5L

The preparation was done during the period of covid-19 pandemic, when staying home was encouraged. Otherwise I might not have finished this.